Weekly Mission Report – Dec. 26th

Hello Ya’ll,

I hope all ya’ll had a great Christmas. Ours was awesome! We opened gifts in the morning with Brother Welch. We then had an awesome Christmas program at church. Our investigator getting baptized this week brought her parents who are against it and they definitely felt the spirit. That was super cool! We then had a lunch with the Tippetts. That was cool because they picked me up for transfers a year ago to go to the Stevens Creek area (the other ward here). It was crazy to be eating at their house a year later. We then Skyped and had dinner with Sister Lawry. She is awesome and we had a ton of fun over there.

This week we also had our Christmas Conference. It went really well but also was really long. We had to drive to Statesboro, GA for it and it didn’t end until close to 5 pm. We got back super late afterward. I was able to see a lot of old friends though. They had a lot of music and training’s during the conference. We also had a gift exchange and watched a movie that I have never heard of before. It was about some sister missionaries and was really weird.

So we were able to take one of our investigators to a members small farm this week and he loved it. He really misses the woods in Pittsburg and so this was really cool for him. He loves animals and knows a ton about them. We had a great lesson with him after as well. He is progressing right now pretty well and we see him again tomorrow.

P-day was awesome today. We explored the Savannah river and the woods around it. We were originally going to try to catch some turtles today but none of them were out because of the weather. Hopefully, next time they will be out.

Thank you all for all you do. Have a great rest of the holiday.

Elder Goodsell

Weekly Mission Report – Dec. 19th

Hey Ya’ll,

I hope all ya’ll had a great week. It’s exciting that Christmas is this next week! It will be awesome! I cant believe that I will be having Christmas in the same area that I did last year. This is the best place in the mission to have Christmas. All us missionaries will get together in the morning to open gifts and celebrate before we go to church and talk with our families. The weather this week has been so weird. It was really cold for a few days and now it is warm again. It is driving us crazy. We are all hoping it will snow here though. This was the area it snowed last year. My blood has thinned so much since I have been in Georgia. I am such a sissy in the cold. My comp makes fun of me all the time. I’m going to die when I go back to Utah. Thank goodness I will be going back in the summer though. My comp and I will hit our 18 month mark this Christmas Eve. We are super stoked about that. A lot of us that came out together have become pretty good friends and so when we all meet up we always talk about how awesome it will be when we get to spend that last night in the mission home.

This week has been awesome! We are finding more solid people who will probably get baptized or close to it. We are teaching a guy named Larry who I think I mentioned before. He has a learning disability and so we teach him 3 times a week. He was not born with the disability though. It came as brain damage from an abusive father. We were going over some things with him and he broke down and told us a lot about his past. It was some of the most horrible things I have heard on the mission. The details are just crazy! I felt so bad for the guy. I cant believe some of the things he has been through. I honestly don’t know how he made it. It really bothered me the rest of the night and my comp and I talked and figured out some ways we could help him. So we tried that this week. By the end of that lesson with him though we talked out some stuff and the spirit changed in the room. It was really neat. I have only felt a change that strong a couple times. Its amazing how the truths of the gospel will do that. You could feel that they were real.

We also tried our Windows of Heaven this week. We ran into a lady who broke down and cried to us and talked to us for 2 hours. It was awesome and she said we were a sign from God but yet she felt we were sent to her to get he motivated to find her own path so she didn’t give us her info. It was kind of weird. We also talked to another less active lady this week who broke down and shared some really hard things that she is going through. Her husband went on a trip and ended up leaving her. I feel like we have been an ear this week for everyone to share their problems. It has been super sad but by the end of all the conversations we had this week, those we spoke to always left uplifted. The spirit was always able to touch them by the time we left. It was super cool.

So my district leader right now was my same district leader in my last area. He and I really want to start and grow a business together. It’s our dream when we get home. We have both come to this area together and with my knowledge of the area for the past year we have really been putting our heads together to get some stuff rolling. We have been kinda running this area like a business together. We have been meeting together a lot as a district to discuss ideas and things we want to accomplish. We have come up with a lot of big plans. We have binders where we have everything organized so we can layout time lines and how we are going to do all this. It has been really good for all of us serving here in this area because a lot of people think missionary work in this area cant be done well because it is a wealthier area. That is the culture in this area and we are changing it right now and so far it is working great! We are still at the beginning stages but things seem to be working out. We are really praying that these plans will work. We have taken a really different approach and if things work out this area will be awesome!

I just realized how much I wrote. I don’t think I have ever written this much. Ha ha. Well, I hope ya’ll have a great Christmas. Thank you so much for your support. Have a great week.

Elder Goodsell

Weekly Mission Report – Dec. 12th

Hey Ya’ll,

I hope ya’ll had a great week. Our week was full of a lot of meetings. We had a big one in Macon and then a zone meeting. The zone meeting was really neat. The training was awesome! Although, one sister went really short and left my companion an hour to give his training. So while he was giving his training, I was wracking my brain of what we could do to take up some time at the end. Finally, I had the thought to have an open discussion and let people share why they love Christmas and what it means to them. It ended up being a very powerful testimony meeting and the spirit was incredible! You could see it on everyone’s faces. Not a single person in that room did not feel the spirit. We sang silent night after that and I cant even describe the feelings that we felt at the end of the meeting. It was amazing! We only had a day to prepare the meeting but it worked out really well.

My comp has been sick this week and we spent a lot of time at the doctor and getting medicine. We weren’t able to do a whole lot this week. We did help someone move and it took forever! We also had the ward Christmas party. We did a little donut competition for the kids and we helped them decorate cookies. It turned out to be a huge hit. The kids loved it! One of our investigators also decided he wants to be baptized on February 25th. That was super exciting! We also are planning one of our investigators baptism this week who will be baptized on the 28th.

This week I have been able to see a lot of people from my old ward. It has been awesome catching up with them. I also was able to stop by one of my old investigators houses who got baptized while I was gone. He is doing amazing!

My comp is getting over his sickness. We should be able to do a lot more this week. I hope ya’ll have a great week and keep getting ready for Christmas!

Elder Goodsell

My Zone

Weekly Mission Report – Dec 5th

Hey Ya’ll,

This week has been awesome and I hope ya’lls has been awesome as well. I got transferred back to Evans, GA. My favorite area! This time I am in the neighboring ward. I’m in the Martinez Ward instead of the Stevens Creek Creek. Both wards meet at the same building though. So, I have been seeing a lot of people I used to know. Also, since I have served already in the Stevens Creek Ward for 8 months I got to know some Martinez Ward people. They were super surprised to see me again. Ha ha, it has been awesome! I am loving it! I love seeing everyone again. It’s really nice already knowing the area and the history of the district over the past year. It has helped a lot. I have been able to jump right into things instead of having to feel out the area. One member I got to see this week was Sister Lawry. She is in the Martinez Ward but I got to know her while I was in the Stevens Creek Ward and it was awesome seeing her this week. We are now going to go to her house for our Skype Christmas calls.

We have some pretty cool people we are working with here. One is getting baptized in 2 weeks, I think. That will be awesome! We also have a couple others who are getting close. So my companion is a huge basketball player and one night when we were traveling home we saw some kids playing and decided to join them. It was pretty cool. They loved it! We then handed out some Christmas cards to them.

I hope ya’ll are doing well. Thank you for the support. I have added some pictures of Savannah down below.

Elder Goodsell

Savannah, GA

Savannah, GA